Thursday, October 21, 2010

Total weight gain/loss: Plenty. I remember in the beginning when I wasn’t gaining anything and thinking “Awesome, I won’t be gaining much at all!” Umm, yeah, right.

Maternity clothes? All pants except sweats are maternity, and the kind with the thin stretchy band doesn’t cut it anymore. Now I wear the ones with the full belly panel and I love them…so comfortable. Also wearing mostly maternity shirts but a select few normal shirts fit ok.

Stretch marks? A ridiculous amount. They started early on my hips but I was naïve and thought they wouldn’t show up on my stomach. Wrong. You would not believe what my stomach looks like now.

Sleep: I sleep amazingly right now and have been for weeks. It figures that for the first time in years I am on a normal sleep schedule and sleeping great at night, and I only have 3 more months to enjoy it!

Best moment this week: Reaching the third trimester.

Movement: All of the movement is still very low, basically under the actual baby belly. Feels like big thumps. He is always awake and thumping as I’m waking up in the morning and as I’m going to sleep at night, and I can only imagine a decent amount of time in between. Usually not much in the late morning or afternoon, but a lot while I'm relaxing at night. I still don't really understand why the movement is so low if that's where his head is and wonder why I don't feel feet kicking up higher.

Food cravings: Eh, not really. Drinking a lot of water (finally), milk and OJ, eating a lot of raisin bread, cereal and yogurt...but they're not really cravings.

Gender: It's a boy!!

Labor Signs: Nope. They say Braxton Hicks contractions can start around now so I'm curious if I'll get them, although it's not a labor sign.

Belly Button in or out? Still completely in.

Wedding rings on or off? *Sigh* I took them off the other night when they were bothering me and haven't put them back on. I might try, but sadly it may be the end for awhile.

What I miss: Nothing really...

What I am looking forward to: Our 3D/4D ultrasound on October 30th!

Weekly Wisdom: Never say you're thankful such-and-such a symptom/effect of pregnancy hasn't reared its head yet and assume it won't....right after you say that you will wake up the next morning with the morning sickness, the stretch marks, or the extra pounds you were so thankful you were avoiding!

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

This entry is all over the place because I've been in the process of writing it for 2 weeks. I go back and forth and each time have to change things (It originally started out "Yesterday" then "This past weekend" then "The weekend before last". It's probably a mumbo jumbo of thoughts...oh well!

The other weekend, we my mom painted Baby L’s room! We are thrilled with how it came out, the color is just as I pictured it, a nice deep tan (“Hot Chocolate”). We also got the furniture moved in. You wouldn’t believe how sturdy this crib is. You can try to shake it, pull on it, push it…it doesn’t budge. Even on the tile floor in the store it didn’t move, you would think it’s actually bolted into the floor. I go in the room constantly and try to shake it, just so I can be impressed all over again. Maybe I should stop doing that. We also got the whole house steam-cleaned which came out great. I am so thrilled with the setup of the room and how much space we still have. I had worried that things would look crammed but they don’t at all, it still feels nice and open. We had to run to Babies ‘R’ Us to get money back on the furniture with some coupons we had, and I ended up buying the changing pad and diaper caddy for the dresser and setting them up. I really have been good at leaving stuff on my registry, but I couldn’t resist this time. Hey, I’m his mom, I get to buy stuff, too! I even filled the caddy with newborn size diapers. They are the tiniest things I have ever seen, smaller than my hand, and I wonder if he is really going to be THAT tiny.

Here is a picture of the furniture in place:

And the diapering setup, just need a few more supplies:

Another thing I finally decided on and ordered is a wall decal, a quote that is going to go above his crib. The lettering is in a powder blue color to stand out against the brown paint. This is a Shel Silverstein quote and I love it:

“Listen to the mustn’ts, child, Listen to the don’tsListen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’tsListen to the never haves, then listen close to meAnything can happen, childAnything can be.”

Adorable, right?

I also bought these cute nautical closet dividers and separated his clothes out by size. I can’t believe how much he has already. It doesn’t look like a lot hanging in the closet, but when you lay it out it looks like a ton. It’s a mixture of sizes that will fit him over the course of his first year, though, so we definitely don’t have nearly enough yet. We need to get a lot of everyday basics – onesies, footed PJs, socks etc. Right now I actually feel like we have too much room for his clothes. What I should do is take them out of the closet and put them in the dresser drawers by size, and then use his closet for storing our out-of-season clothes, luggage etc., but instead I have been clearing those things out and cramming them elsewhere because I really want it to be his closet. I could actually leave his clothes in there and still fit our stuff just fine, but instead I’ve chosen to be impractical about it.

Here is what his closet looks like so far, the quality is terrible but I will take better pictures when everything is done:

I am in a complete state of disbelief that my third trimester is, as of tomorrow, here. We are now in double digits – just 91 days until his due date. I usually feel like I’m still about 5 minutes pregnant and at the very beginning of this journey. I guess in most ways, it is still the beginning, but the end of the pregnancy part is quickly approaching and he really will be here before we know it.

And here is where I admit that although I wouldn’t say I feel scared or anxious, I have no clue what to expect. Really. I know that we are ready for this little person to join our family, but I can’t pretend for one second that I know or can even imagine what it will be like. As much as I have been around infants, I still have zero concept of what it will be like to have our own, 24/7. I don’t think it’s something that is even possible to understand before it becomes reality. You’re given 9 months to prepare but there is only so much you can really do to get ready. When I say I don’t know what it will be like, I mean it in every sense – I don’t know what it will be like to see him for the first time and hold him, to bring him home, to stay awake all night, to worry about him, to look in the rearview mirror while driving and see him back there sleeping or smiling at me,to say "two plus a high chair" when we go out to eat, to have him as my little companion 24/7. What will it be like to wake up to him every morning and put him to bed every night? And although we already love him, I still can’t imagine what that love will be like when he’s actually here.

A few people have asked me what I picture him looking like when I picture him, and the truth is, I don’t. Is that bad? It’s not that I don’t want to picture him, it’s that I don’t know how to. My brain doesn’t know how to envision a little person that looks just like my husband or I, or both, or neither. The concept that we even created him is still beyond me. I will say I’m starting to picture him with a certain color hair, but then I had a dream the other night where it was different, so I don’t know. That was actually truly the first dream I had about him, which I guess may also seem strange but like I said, my brain still isn’t grasping the reality of this when it’s conscious, let alone when it’s not. In my dream, he was amazing, but I was really screwing up. I couldn’t feed him right, kept putting clothes on him without a diaper and then having to change him, and at one point took a few hours to dress him because I couldn’t find the right clothes. At the end of the dream, when I thought he was just a few days old, he got up and started running around and I was so upset because I had missed out on him being a tiny baby while I was scrambling to take care of him correctly.

These last few days I have really been hit with the “I can’t wait” feeling. It came on pretty suddenly. Before, his birth seemed so far off that I didn’t think that much about it, it just seemed ages away. Actually, it seems like yesterday that even being pregnant seemed ages away. Now the thought of being in my third trimester and knowing how fast time has passed so far has really got me thinking about him being born and major excitement has kicked in. The holidays are going to make the next couple of months fly by and then it’ll be time! We went on a tour of the maternity ward at St. Peter’s University a couple of weeks ago and I loved it. I feel so much more comfortable now having seen the place and being told where to go when we get there, what their policies are etc. We even got to see one of the nurseries, complete with real live babies (I suppose they could have been paid actor babies, though)…which, of course, was my favorite part. I am also determined to start packing my hospital bag, like, yesterday. I know that may sound ridiculous but I know of a few women who were due after me (yes, after me) who have had their babies already. Thankfully they are doing well. I want to be prepared in case the unexpected happens. I know that if anything really happened this early, my hospital bag would be the least of my worries, but still. And as of now, I can say I'm not afraid of the actual labor and delivery.

Also, our 3-D ultrasound is scheduled for October 30th!! I am so excited. We will get a 35-45 minute 3-D/4-D ultrasound, a bunch of pictures and even a 20 minute DVD. We are bringing my mom, too, because it’s her birthday and she “couldn’t imagine a better birthday present than to see Spud.” Yes, she calls him Spud. I am trying not to get my hopes up too high for two reason, 1) I have been told at multiple ultrasounds that I “don’t image well” and that they had a hard time seeing what they wanted to and 2) at my last ultrasound they tried to get a picture of his face but because he is always in his beloved head down/face down position, they couldn’t. Despite these things, the picture we got at our 20 week ultrasound was pretty good, so hopefully it won’t be a problem. Also, most 3D ultrasounds are done somewhere around 28-32 weeks, and many babies are head down/face down at that point, so they must be used to it.

And finally, since I should probably put some of these in here, the only recent bump pic I have. It's from about a month ago, at 23.5 weeks. When I think about how adamant I was that I would take these every. single. week. I just laugh. The most recent one before this was 17 weeks and I haven't taken one since this. Even this is not the kind of picture I intended to take every week...I had a certain outfit and signs and...oh well.